This is also my opinion. (The time from games like Half-Life 1 are over)

Gamestudio is not the youngest Engine. But it have a huge community, JCL that post at the forum and more.
I think it doesnt matter if you are a proffesionel programmer or an amateru. Every guy need a good documentation.

And the best: There are regular updates.

ummm...you guys do know what the advanced lighting is, right?

The advanced lighting doesn't mean you don't get lighting, It means you get the lighting from TGEA...TGEA still had good lighting and shadows, for $250 you more-or-less get what you got in TGEA except source.

It's not that much different from the 3DGS license that you keep referring to. 3DGS doesn't have source either, and for $800 you really only get the ability to change the popup window along with some other very small features that don't deserve the $600 difference.

You talk about how bad the license is, well...just be happy you're getting it for under 100k.

"The time from games like Half-Life 1 are over"
But you wanna spend $250 on the tool you want to develop your "next gen" games in.
Let me ask you this , did you spend $250 on your car ? Did you spend $250 on your computer ? Many PC gamers spend more than that on a video card or ram . My monitor cost me more than that , so do you think it's suitable or even sane to pursue creation of a commercial game of today's standard by using the cheapest engine version of (an already cheap)game engine you've chosen to use ? Be realistic , $5000 for a game engine would be a steal , I mean , compare to a AAA+ engine like U3 , $760,000. And Torque is only $1,000 . To look at Torque 3D and all of it's new features , and it's incredibly price tag , and then complain about the $250 version not including all of the $1000 version features is INSANITY. A successful commercial game will make you a millionaire , and you think spending $1000 on the tool to make it is too much of an investment to shell out ?

I've seen modelers charge over $1000 for ONE next-gen game model , and what can you do with just one game model ? I think we have some people here who have no idea of what a good piece of software is worth. I'm extremely happy to see garagegames still offering it's engine at an extremely fair price , when with their track record they could easily tackle the middle price range and charge $50,000 for it's new engine , or even polish it some more and move to the full commercial arena , as other companies that have taken that road (project offset ?Reality Engine?).

No matter how much of a fanboy , I would have imagined any game developer would have gotten exited after seeing Torque3D's videos , and price tag , but I was wrong. I was pretty exited to see the engine's progress , hence the post. In any case , as soon as I get enough money I'm getting both Torque3D and Unity , as they are beautiful pieces of software and ANY indie game developer would have to be clinically insane not to want to have them in their arsenal.

Heh, you still not getting it.
YOU WEREN'T WRONG ABOUT IT

they are incredible demos, and if i had the money, i'd definately consider torque3d, what i have the issue with (and i've said this wayyy tooo many times) is that you make a comparison of torque3d with a7, which isnt a fair comparison.

I'll support GameStudio. In my books, it's the best engine that works with good quality works-out-of-the-box-and-ready-to-go templates that just work, even if it's something being recycled.

Other engines are confusing/need intense code learning/buggy or just not worth the money. I know GameStudio is a bit of a whammy with the cost ($800 I think for one of the versions) but hey, at least it's better than a version that lacks the basic key features.

Torque 3D may have beaten GameStudio to the mark, but it depends on the money you're willing to pay.

This thread and this argument still makes no sense to me.



There are people that spend $50,000 on a night in a penthouse suite, but I'm betting most people here can't do that, so they stay in a Best Western and it works for them. How much some people can afford for a game engine doesn't relate to what others can afford. If money is no object for creating your commercial game then go with a real AAA engine. If money is an issue, then you make do with what you can afford to work with. Which in the case of most people here is probably GS Extra or Commercial.



Again, compared to a Lamborghini a Lexus is a steal, so why aren't we all driving a Lexus? Everyone tries to use the comparison above, but you can't compare T3D to U3 no matter how hard you try. T3D is still Tribes 2 code with some updated functions and a better toolset than TGEA had.



Torque in all it's various forms has been around for 9 years now, and though 'commercial' games have been made with it I'd like to see a list of people who have become millionaires from them. I'm betting the list of GameStudio millionaires is just as large.



And again, how does this relate? I've seen people pay $60,000 for a paint job on a vehicle, but that still doesn't mean that being able to get a whole car for $60,000 is a good deal for the average person. Why throw these figures out there?



I think most people have an idea of what things are worth, but they also have a better idea of what they can afford. There are people out there that would say "Why are you playing around with a $50,000 game engine, you should be using U3 if you want to make a real commercial game."



What track record? How many people have gotten wealthy off a game made with Torque? They have some very dedicated developers that (with a lot of work to get around the engine drawbacks) have made some cool games, and some groups have used it for some pretty unique things, but you're still not going to find any millionaires in the group.



And there it is, everyone is going to get the big fancy engine 'when they get enough money'. So everyone should just wait until they get enough money to buy an expensive engine before they get into development?

People buy what they can afford, or what they want to spend on a hobby, and that's what they work with. If you can afford a bazillion dollars to buy a whiz bang engine that's great, but it seems there are a few people arguing for an engine being a great deal when they can't even afford it themselves.

Personally, I think $180,000 for a loaded Lamborghini is a great deal, and as soon as I get enough money I'm going to get one. Or maybe one of the Torque millionaires will float me a loan...

And that's great, 3DGS is for you.

It's just that the ones that want to make full games without using the 'out of the box' stuff will choose an engine like Unity or T3D because of the ability to build 'out of the boundaries of said box'. When it comes down to it, T3D are for the ones who want T3D, 3DGS is more for people who want to learn programming, and want to make some simpler games.

The point is that T3D is still a bargain even at 1k.



I think it also comes down to if it's a hobby or a job. For people like me, it's a job. I'm a coder so I want the best bang for my buck, and I don't really consider A7, or any other Acknex that 'bang'.

I think it is completely fair to consider what others pay for models and resources, the point is how much people will pay for models when said money could be spent on a better engine. Say you spent $500 on an....meh, ok modelling program, when you could've gotten something like blender or TrueSpace(which is now dying) and spent $500 on a great engine to run your models for whatever purpose. It'd be a better deal to get a better program for free and spend the 500 you have on an engine. It's still a valid example.

It just comes down to if you're making games, or small projects. For someone who is payed to make presentations for a company, and the presentation doesn't require many models or anything extra to run and said person is getting paid decently by said company, a simple DX9 engine would do. For someone who wants to make good games that require some rendering power and are more than a simple shooter or casual game, they'd need something with more power than a simple DX9 engine. For someone who is a modeller/artist/level designer, an engine that does most code for you is good.

I wouldn't say it's a matter of budget (because most people will spend a decent amount on multiple things just to play around with it) but a matter of what you want to do. I have seen plenty of people around here that have bought multiple game engines and never did anything with them. They bought em, played around with them, and found out that the engine(s) doesn't have a "make game" button and give up. Most of those people will buy an engine that does most of it for them, not that it's a bad thing, but after spending ALL that money (which could amount to well over 1k) they settle with the engine that does the code for them.

The point is that most people will spend alot of money to "test".

edit: anyway, hopefully this will be my last off-topic post.

Yes. I see such people in many forums. Some of them collect game engines and I have to admit, I also spent a lot of money in this area (Gamestudio, Lawmaker, C4, Torque Showtool Pro plus I worked with Irrlicht, Beyond Virtual, Ogre and evaluated Gamebryo, Unity and others). I even created an episode of 9 levels for the first Doom game with an ancient editor.

But I indeed use many of them on a regular base. I render models and textures for our web shop and test import workflow and check for render problem.

I am indeed close to get a T3D license. For my purpose it looks very complete. I have shaders, shadow-mapping, post-processing and real-time editing plus scripting. It is very important for me to setup scenes fast and directly and to get results instantly. I cannot spend weeks because I want to finish something and turn toward the next model or texture pack fast.

I am sure the same counts for people who make small games. Id-Software wants to release games for the iPhone every 2-3 months now. This makes sense. If you want to live from that then you have to finish such small projects fast. And because of that you need a good workflow.

But it depends on the project what technology fits better then. Gamestudio is only an option for Windows games. If you want to have more platforms then you have to check Shiva, Unity3d and Torque products. They all have modern tools. You will find good docs for Torgue Game Builder (2d-games) and Unity3d. I dont know how good the Shiva docs are.

"People buy what they can afford, or what they want to spend on a hobby, and that's what they work with. If you can afford a bazillion dollars to buy a whiz bang engine that's great"

Yeah , the point of all those arguments was that Torque3D only costs a mere $1000 , and the AAA+ toolsets can cost close to a million , hence how it's a great thing that it's at an affordable price to the average person. How much money do you have to make to consider a $1000 investment in a game development engine too expensive ? $0.25 an hour ? A decent size television will run you at $2000 to $4000 , and even a shitty small one will be around $7000 to $1000 , unless you buy one of those tiny ones. PS3 came out costing around $600 , and sold like cake. So the point was , that the engine looks incredible , and is very affordable, I don't see how anyone could see it as being too expensive. In fact , most people can get some type of credit to buy it and pay it off in small amounts , just like people buy everything else.

Now I still don't have the engine , so I can't say first hand if it's as awesome as it looks like it's going to be , but if it is , I would say it's easily worth it's price tag.

"What track record? How many people have gotten wealthy off a game made with Torque?"
Many more than gamestudio , that's for certain.(though that's purely developer's fault rather than engine)

"I think most people have an idea of what things are worth, but they also have a better idea of what they can afford."
Yeah , the engine is $1000 , not $100,000
If $1000 is such an astronomical price tag for you , then how on earth do you afford to pay your rent and your bills ?

"Again, compared to a Lamborghini a Lexus is a steal, so why aren't we all driving a Lexus? Everyone tries to use the comparison above, but you can't compare T3D to U3 no matter how hard you try"
T3D Toolset is starting to look more and more like a truly next gen toolset. But price wise , your comparison doesn't work , it's more like comparing a lamborghini to a Lexus that's priced like a 15 year old used , shitty , half broken camaro. Would be crazy not to buy that Lexus right ?

"There are people that spend $50,000 on a night in a penthouse suite"
Yeah , and for those people there is UE3 and Cry Engine.

"but I'm betting most people here can't do that, so they stay in a Best Western"
Yeah , but your suggesting even that is too much , and maybe they should stay in the smallest shittiest hotel in the worst part of town.

"If money is an issue, then you make do with what you can afford to work with."
Again , it's $1000 and NOT $100,000 like your making it seem.

"Torque in all it's various forms has been around for 9 years now, and though 'commercial' games have been made with it I'd like to see a list of people who have become millionaires from them"
The tribes people musta made a couple millies for sure.

"And again, how does this relate? I've seen people pay $60,000 for a paint job on a vehicle, but that still doesn't mean that being able to get a whole car for $60,000 is a good deal for the average person. Why throw these figures out there?"
Because it shows the weight of the money.

You seem to not understand anything , the examples I put were very clear and to the point , how did you read them all and not understand them ? Yes , there's people with trillions of dollars , and some with very little. But Torque at $1000 is priced for the indie with no budget at all , EVERYONE can put some money aside every week and have the money to buy Torque in a couple of months , it's priced VERY moderately.

The only thing I can think is that you might be a 12 year old kid that sees $1000 like a million dollars , because other than that , I don't see how you could consider such a modest price so ridiculously expensive you compare it to spending $50,000 a night in a penthouse suite. Do you realize what you say ?

And , did you know that the full version of GameStudio costs $899 ? And do you realize many people here on the boards have the Pro version ? Are they filthy rich billionaires who lavishly spend away their money with no care in the world ?

And one last thing , if your that bad off financially , there IS free engines , MANY MANY free engines , it's not like I'm posting on the board of a freeware engine , the full featured version of this engine costs $899 , don't forget that when your making your comparisons.

In principle I agree, Torque is much more a c++ like programming language than Lite-c but for a game oriented programming language other factors must be taken in duly consideration
I tried Torque some years ago, at that time there were two main issues

# 1 the client / server architecture
Good for multiplayer games but an issue for any thing else

# 2 the sets of commands
Impressive for an FPS game but definitley not sufficient for any thing else
You had to tweak the engine to achieve features which were quite normal in 3dgs

The reason was that torque engine had been originally designed for the multiplayer FPS Tribe

If the new Torque3d uses the same old Torque syntax but it turned into a real multipurpose engine that's ok
Otherwise I will never take Torque3d into consideration